


Bad Company

by Potterology



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Cowboys, F/F, Red Dead AU, The whole gang is here, Wild West
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:07:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23638045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Potterology/pseuds/Potterology
Summary: "Alex hadn’t mentioned anything about kidnapping when mapping out the job – there had been talk of a train and money and a contract, something somebody wanted, and of course the Sisters Gang was inclined to oblige."This is just indulgent Red Dead Redemption au.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	Bad Company

**Author's Note:**

> Shout out to narraboths for sparking this absolute ridiculous self indulgence

It is a difficult thing to quantify the lure of an outlaw life. When the West was young, it seemed easy enough to shoot a few guns here and rob a traveller there, but as time goes on, the West feels less and less sympathetic to the cause. Outlaws are no longer the wild and wilful, they are villains – evil circus murderers who wander town to town searching for a quick dollar and mayhem, caricatures who revel in the chaos they unleash on unsuspecting good men and women. Is it the glory? The stories of gunslingers on horseback, galloping through a hail of bullets with a bag of money strapped to their saddles and a beautiful woman swooning behind them as they head into the distance? It’s beguiling, thrilling, to imagine oneself as a rapscallion. A rebel without a cause. A free person who goes where the wind blows.

Or is it something else?

The chase, perhaps? Being one step ahead of the law and their bounty hunters?

When they were children, Alex used to say _money won is sweeter than money earned_. She always said it swinging in a hammock, looking out at a setting sun as if it held the path to fortune, a girl who courted danger and made it sound romantic. Kara can certainly see the appeal when she witnesses dynamite explode in the distance, or hears a gunshot in the cold dark night knowing her target has been found. But children they ain’t and the money is never won so much as swindled and Kara doesn’t quite get the same rush she used to when they first started.

“You set?” comes a familiar voice in the darkness, illuminated only by the barest hint of firelight coming from a torch about the be doused. J’onn stands off to the side of the tracks, peering up at Kara with a warm smile and kinder eyes than an outlaw ought to have, waiting for the go ahead. (He was a sheriff way back and still carries himself like one.) The train is cresting the bend before the bridge so they still have a bit of time but there is hardly sense in dragging it out – better to be prepared than desperate. Surprise is only supposed to work one way, after all.

From the toppled stagecoach, Kara yanks the bandana up over her chin and nose, and gives a tight nod. The torch is doused, tossed aside in the long grass. She checks her bandolier, her shotgun, her rifle and pistols, unclips the holsters so they are ready should they be needed, and all around her are familiar clicks and thuds of weapons readying. She cricks her neck. Finds her sister’s eyes in the darkness watching her.

 _Be careful_ , they say. _Stick to the plan._

The train rumbles over the bridge in their direction, rounds the last part of the track, towards the edge of the treeline before it opens up into the wild prairie where a broken carriage still strapped to a dead horse and its rider are spread out across the ground. There is no missing it, no way around, no one to call for help.

This particular train is of special interest. On the outside it looks much the same as any other box of nails and wood, right down to the wheels moving the damn thing, except this train has _The Luthor Corporation_ emblazoned along the side and this train just happens to be ferrying the highest of high class patrons on a whistlestop tour through Elizabeth to Lemoyne. They know a few of who are onboard – Cat Grant, for one – but it isn’t the people they care about, it’s the cargo; Alex hasn’t told her what it is she is supposed to be looking for and to the rest of the gang, this is just a routine job, so all Kara really has to go on is _you’ll know it when you see it_.

The train squeals to brake in time and only just about makes it.

Hot steel stops less than a foot from where Kara stands. Right on the money. She grins, wolfish. Because she can postulate with the best of them and read all the dusty books in Alex’s personal carriage and wonder as much as she can stand to wonder but in the end, this is it. _This_ is the lure of the outlaw.

Power. Plain and simple.

_What is yours is mine and what is mine is mine, too._

Alex, J’onn and Kara (after a quick jump) dash to the doors of the train and board, while Winn (loyal, whip smart but with no stomach for the dirtier details of their profession) gallops out from the shadow of the dark with a rifle trained on the driver. James (an old friend of her cousin Clark who got caught out at the O.K. Corral) keeps his distance and waits outside, ready to give the signal on the sight of any hint of law.

Alex has her face covered but Kara can _hear_ the shit-eating grin on her face in the way she gleefully begins to shake a bag in the direction of the travellers. “Alright, everybody, keep those hands where we can see them and you all may proceed onwards to your destination. My good friends and I are here to relieve you of financial burden and believe me when I say it is in your best interests to assist us in this noble goal, as the alternate is unfavourable for both me and especially you.”

One by one, the people onboard slide it over and Kara shakes her head at the oblivious and gratuitous wealth surrounding them; shiny gold bracelets and diamond earrings, pearls, ruby and emerald rings, silver and gold wedding bands (some more reluctantly handed over than others), even a pair of strange eyeglasses Kara thinks she might need to have a look at later. There is money, too. Copious amounts of it. Hundreds of dollars are emptied into Alex’s bag and with every single one, Kara can feel pressure mounting, wants to kick the haunches and ride into the horizon but her sister can be greedy. And even with Kara checking under every table and carefully cataloguing the size and speed of the train, they don’t feel any closer to finding what they came here to take.

J’onn disappears down the carriages ahead of her and Alex stays behind to coerce a namby-pamby intellectual looking type into giving her his money, so Kara stays between and waves her rifle at the patrons. No one makes a move. She catches a glimpse of James stood outside and nods when he mouths to _hurry up_.

Nothing stands out until she reaches the next carriage.

Opulent as the rest of the seating might be, this one takes the cake. All red velvet and carefully crafted tables, with clean windows and immaculately pressed upholstery. There is even a side bar. The tabletop is curved and delicately polished, without so much as a watermark, and varying bottles of expensive liquor are lined up behind it, each one hemmed in by thin gold caging. It is beautiful and decadent and horrendously gaudy but it means nothing, utterly and completely nothing, not a goddamn thing when compared to the sheer radiance it protects: in a booth in a corner past the bar at the opposite end of the carriage sits a woman.

Well, two women. One older with her back to Kara, hair whipped into something severe and painful looking, and the other… Well.

The twin lights of the moon and train sconces combine into a soft glow which seems only to serve her pale skin; curled dark hair falls in delicate, indulgent waves, tied up only enough to keep it from running wild; her dress is black and lacy, a subtle fan of material along an almost scandalous neckline (even from a distance Kara can tell a magnificent pair of breasts when she sees them and this mysterious stranger is no exception); and she is too far away too distinguish any sort of eye colour but if she had to guess, it would be green. Green like a fresh ocean wave, green like the emeralds Alex collects, green like a pasture of new grass, green like— well. Green as anything green.

And all of this says nothing to the woman herself: she is, quite simply, the finest woman Kara has ever laid eyes on. Holding herself in a regal, practised and pretty way, the slope of her throat tells of soft wonders, encouraging a sliding gaze upwards to the sharp cut of her jaw and the roman set of her nose dips into deep cheekbones. For just the barest of seconds, so quick it might be imagined, Kara could swear when they lock eyes – green boring into blue – the stranger smiles. Just barely, just a suggestion, but it’s there.

“Jackpot.” Alex barges past, gleeful, pushing Kara out the way and beelines directly for the oasis vision who is no longer looking her way. 

“Pardon me ladies,” Alex has the gall to tip her hat, as if a gentleman in a market stall greeting the well-to-do wives of her colleagues, and holsters her pistol. “While I hate to interrupt what I am sure is a riveting journey, I must insist you alight.”

Kara takes it as her cue. This must be the cargo.


End file.
